Associations

‘The Quickening’ – Julie Myerson

I understand that famous horror-movie company Hammer joined forces with Arrow books to ask established writers to produce a book in a specific genre, focusing specifically on psychological horror. This is the third in the series, and focuses on a honeymoon couple who visit the Caribbean and end up experiencing some strange and unexplained events.

From the outset I found Rachel an unreliable narrator, and one that I just couldn’t gel with. When she is told by locals that her husband, Dan, is in danger it’s not clear what is real, what she is imagining because of her pregnancy/past events and what is meant to be ‘unexplained’. Dan himself is the kind of character that is controlling and unsympathetically portrayed throughout. At a number of points in the story I found myself hoping he would be next on the list of characters to be murdered so that the book would end!

Suffice to say this is well-written, and keeps you reading, but it is odd and that oddness prevented me from finding this the kind of book I would recommend strongly to others.